Sandia National Labs Academic Alliance Collaboration Report 2020-2021

CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLGHT

Ani Mazumdar

Georgia Tech’s Ani Mazumdar studies robot mobility with the goal of understanding and achieving agile, versatile, and efficient robot behaviors in unstructured environments. When he was a Sandia postdoc in Albuquerque, he and his team participated in the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals. “Systems that can reconfigure have the potential to function effectively in unstructured environments by changing their gearing, shape, or control architecture to best match the changing conditions.”

collaboration goes beyond A4H-funded research, however. He provided support for the AutonomyNM Bootcamp, which is designed to attract collaborative research in AI and autonomy, and he developed a talent pipeline in these critical fields for Sandia. Mazumdar referred several students to the program and is currently working with his Georgia Tech students through a Vertically Integrated Projects course that assists Sandia and the new AutonomyNM robotarium by providing a simulation environment and a fixed-wing platform for hardware implementation. The 30 AutonomyNM Bootcamp interns in summer 2020 gained exposure to Sandia’s unique national security mission and hypersonic research and development. They also gained valuable experience by working on the first two drone systems. Using the drones, the Labs will test new algorithms for autonomous navigation, guidance and control, and target recognition. The AutonomyNM drones will provide Sandia an agile platform to quickly evaluate algorithms and technologies for autonomous flight before incorporating them into larger flight systems and tests. These drones will fly in the new indoor high-bay robotarium, a facility that also provides collaborative office space for visiting AutonomyNM professors. Virtual field days for the AutonomyNM interns were held August 4-6, 2020. Mazumdar said, “The AutonomyNM program gave two of my students a unique opportunity to work directly with some of the world’s leading experts in hypersonics and guidance/ navigation/control. They gained knowledge in two critical areas: (1) understanding the unique challenges faced by algorithms intended for hypersonic flight, and (2) appreciating the multidisciplinary nature of hypersonics research that must combine understanding of high-speed aerodynamics, thermal effects, flight mechanics, feedback control, and artificial intelligence.”

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2020-2021 Collaboration Report

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